The Witch in the North
by sephacles
Summary: In another life, in another world, in another time, her name was Hermione Umber. (not abandoned, on hiatus)
1. Chapter 1

In the last moments of the world as Hermione Granger knew it, she wished she had heard it come. Or saw the wand pointed at her face. Or felt the hairs tingle on the nape of her neck. She wished she had seen the danger, that she put up a good fight.

She honestly didn't.

"Avada Kedavra!" the clear, cold voice said, and blinding green light filled her vision, and she fell like a marionette whose strings were cut. She broke, she was nothing but pain and terror, and everything she had ever seen, everything she had ever known, was gone.

And Death spoke to her.

 _To begin is to end and to end is to begin_ , Hermione was told, _you will learn to walk and speak again, lose your teeth, bite into fruits, count stars lying on your back in the dewy grass and you will know, again, what it is to love and to hat_ _e. You will forget the life you have left behind, but there are many other things you will remember even when you can no longer recall their meaning. Do not be afraid, child. Let your soul dance with eternity._

And bewildered, she fell again.

* * *

 **THE WITCH**  
 **IN**  
 **THE NORTH**

* * *

 _ **1**_

In the hour of the nightingale, the Last Hearth was a haunted place. The rising sun painted rays of reddish-orange through the blue fog of dawn, unveiling snow-mantled mountain peaks and misty forests spreading as far as the eye could see. Slowly, the tops of pine trees and oaks came into view, like shadowy black lace against the reddening sky, the world silent but for the howling of the wind and the ravens' haunting caws. Beyond the wildwood, the Wall was naught but a faint pale line across the horizon, stretching away to the east and west until it vanished in the far distance.

As Meryanne stared out the solar's window, she felt more dwarfed by the ancient square tower from which she watched the sunrise than the endless wilderness outside. She was unsettlingly aware of the castle's presence, rising ominously over the countryside like a forbidding black of doom. There were northmen who believed the crude blackstone castle had been raised by the magic of ravenous giants, and that the woods surrounding it came from a time when the children of the forest ruled Westeros. Meryanne never knew whether she believed those tales or not. Here at the end of the world, where cold and winds hammered endlessly at the earth, it was easy to believe in old gods and forgotten magics. Ofttimes when she prayed in the godswood, she would startle at a strange sound or a shadow and, remembering those old legends, scurry back to the Black Keep.

Would that he had been here, her lord husband would have laughed at her and said that if the children of the forest were real, he would have asked them to keep the bloody wildlings from encroaching upon their shorelines. But Jon was far away to the south, fighting the king's men at the side of Eddard Stark of Winterfell and Robert Baratheon, the lord of Storm's End.

Meryanne blew breath on the frozen diamond-shaped panes of the window, and rubbed at the frost to see better. Winter had held the lands in its icy grip for close on four years now, and this moon snowstorms came down with unusual violence; night and day the crash of the wind had resounded over the castle until no man or woman within the walls could sleep and even the hounds whimpered mournfully. She longed more than ever for the white ravens to fly from the great Citadel of Oldtown, bringing forth word of winter's end.

She noticed two heavy figures in black walking across the yard to the godswood, and wondered who was foolish enough to brave the biting weather. From on high they looked no larger than ants, but if she put her mind to it, she could have guessed who they were. Very few remained at Last Hearth, women, boys, babes, a few men-at-arms and those old, crippled warriors who all wore same faces. Fierce, with deeply lined eyes, experienced from deeds so gruesome as to only be whispered about. One of the maids once told Meryanne that during the harshest winters the oldest among them marshaled their courage, went hunting. . . and didn't come back, so others could live off their food. Anyone living down the Neck would call these ways callous, but the North was a cold, hard place and it bred cold, hard men with cold, hard ways.

Meryanne shivered and drew her furs closely about her neck. _There will be no need for final hunts this year,_ she thought somberly. _Any Umb_ _er would rather die warring than alone in the snow._

The war had raged for a year and four moons now. A castle had no secrets, and men and maids alike were full of oddments of kitchen gossip, repeating tales they heard from lone riders and travelers. King Aerys was dead at Robert Baratheon's hands. The heads of the Kingsguard were rotting on the walls of the Red Keep, impaled on spikes. The Targaryens had laid siege to Storm's End. The Baratheons had laid siege to King's Landing. Prince Rhaegar was dead. No, Prince Rhaegar was alive, and had returned from the south with twenty thousand Dornishmen. Lord Tully and Lord Stark marched down from Riverrun, burning and slaughtering as they went. They meant to smash the Mad King to put the lord on the throne, the master of horse said. No, not Lord Stark, the other one, the young storm lord.

Meryanne would have believed anything but this. What right did Robert Baratheon ever have to the crown? Granted, King Aerys was a madman, but the throne was rightfully his by all the laws of gods and men, and were he to die—and she guiltily admitted the realm would be the better off without him—he had two sons, Prince Rhaegar and Prince Viserys, and grandchildren besides. All trueborn Targaryens with the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and conquerors. Baratheon had no business sitting on their throne, no claim to it. And the Starks aiding him were no better. If those news were true, even the Umbers were traitors, usurpers, and rebels.

Or perhaps there were other reasons that Meryanne could not understand. It wouldn't the first time she found herself at odds with her goodkin. She had come into this world not an Umber of the Last Hearth but a Darry of the riverlands, daughter to a lord, then sister to another, and all loyal to the dragonlords. While her eldest brother Rollan ruled their lands, Willem had received his knighthood at the Lord Commander's hands, Ser Gerold Hightower, and served as master-at-arms at the Red Keep. The king himself bestowed the white cloak of the Kingsguard on her brother Jonothor when he was one-and-twenty, and it was not long ago that their youngest brother was anointed with the seven oils and recited his knightly vows and the Prince of Dragonstone tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Arise, Ser Raymun.'

 _And the gods know Darrys' vows do not break so easily_ , Meryanne thought with fierce pride. Her brothers would never bow to an usurper and betray those they had pledged to protect. They had sworn oaths to the dragons and would keep them until the very end, she had no doubt. Her pride was immediately followed by helplessness and dread _. If what they say is true, and Baratheon becomes king, would I ever see th_ _em again? Safe and alive?_

Meryanne raised a hand to the window glass again, saw that it was trembling, and put it back down. Memories she thought she had forgotten came rushing. Rollan had held her as she'd been born, had guided her straggling babe steps, and, once she was grown enough to crave sweets from the village market, slipped coppers in her skirts pockets. Rollan was ten years older than she, a husband and father besides, but had never treated her with anything other than steadfast affection, had never shown her anything but kindness. How she yearned to hear his voice now. Even Willem's angry tones would be comforting, she would give everything to sit beside him, while he raged and stormed against life's injustices. Raymun had quipped on numerous occasions that Willem's mere presence in a room darkened the mood, and that his glower could frighten the sun into hiding on a good day, but to Meryanne, rather than oppressive and brooding, their older brother had felt reassuring. And dear, dear Jonothor. He had long been her champion, from the moment their lady mother died bringing Raymun to the world. Both Meryanne's father and septa had not known what to do of her incessant wailings and sudden rages, but Jonothor had wrapped eight-year-old arms around her four-year-old body and firmly held her while she sobbed. How close they had all been, the five Darry siblings.

Meryanne felt such an urge of homesickness than the scenery behind the frost-covered glass disappeared. Beyond the trees was not the cold northern land, but the castle where she grew up, the great hall with the trestle tables and woven portraits of all the Targaryen kings from the first Aegon to the second Aenys hung on the walls. Darrys had always supported the Targaryens it seemed. Her ancestors had fought during the Blackfyre Rebellion, defended Queen Rhaenyra's claim during the Dance of the Dragons, and not to forget about the Demon of Darry, the hero of a hundred songs and fearless Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

 _It must be in the Darry blood_ , Meryanne thought forlornly, _just as it is in an Umber's blood not to think twice of dying for the Starks._

Gods be good, no matter how this terrible war ended, she would lose somebody. All those she loved were out there risking their lives, her husband, the father of her children, her brothers, Rollan and Jonothor and Willem and Raymun, all fiercely loyal and foolishly brave. . . and all fighting under different banners.

Meryanne would have thought she was cursed by the gods, if not for the fact that many others were in the same case. The Seven Kingdoms had never been more divided since war broke out. King Aerys's harsh rule had won him no love in the realm, and the lords Baratheon, Stark and Arryn's rebellion was heralded by lords great and small flocking to their banners. Others fell back before them or took shelter in their castles, unwilling to risk their lives in the name of a king they reviled. Others remained loyal to the Targaryens, refusing to join with some lordling against their own king, going as far as to chose the dragons over their lieges. All were fighting among themselves—save for the north. When Eddard Stark called his banners, every single one of his vassals rose up against the throne. The northerners rallied for the second son, this quiet shadow who had been fostered in the Vale.

 _How queer_ , Meryanne had thought then, as she watched the Umbers march to war, young and old alike wearing black iron helms and cloaked in bearskins and wolfskins. Her goodfather Lord Harmon himself led them, his brothers and uncles and nephews riding beside him beneath crimson-red banners emblazoned with the roaring giant in shattered chains. When they left, she told her husband that her late father would never have sent his men off to die for a lordling he didn't know. Why were they supporting the young Stark when their loyalty was to the king?

"My wife and her damned southron ways," Jon had said, snorting in disgust. "Your _king_ cooked our liege lord in his armour, strangled his son, called for his second son's head and his princeling raped their sister. Are we supposed to just bend the knee to them? To let them live?"

 _Yes_ , Meryanne had thought, _because Queen Rhaella and Prince Viserys and Princess Elia did not commit any of these, and I doubt gallant Prince Rhaegar has acted as bullish as you all believe. Why, are you truly sure this Lyanna Stark refused his advances? How do you know she is not to blamed too?_ But she did not say it aloud. The only person in the castle who didn't find this war worthwhile was her, and her husband's mood had been to foul for sense anyway. He was angered that he was left behind to hold Last of Hearth 'with the cravens and green boys'. Lord Harmon had ordered him to, so someone would ward off the wildlings were they to cross the Bay of Seals and raid their lands.

Jon's mood only blackened when news came from the southwestern riverlands, less than two moons later. Dark wings, dark words, the fishwives said, and the messenger raven had proved the truth of the proverb. The bird brought word of Lord Harmon's demise, slain at Stoney Sept where rebels and the king's men battled in streets, alleys, and rooftops.

On the morrow, the newmade Lord of the Last Hearth had armed himself with his two-handed greatsword and warhorn, all grim and hollow-eyed, the grief fresh on his face.

"Revenge won't bring him back," Meryanne had told him.

"No, it bloody damned won't." And without another word, Jon saddled his warhorse and rode south.

At least he had left her with more than distress. The war raged on, nine moons had come and gone, his seed had quickened and Meryanne had born her second child only two nights ago, a beam of hope and light during terrible days.

Quietly, Meryanne left the solar and crossed the gallery on stocking feet to her bedchambers. Fire blazed in the hearth and when she touched the stone walls, she was reassured to find warmth under her fingers. She walked to the carved oak cradle and gazed down at the sleeping bundle, huddled in swaddling clothes, soft wool blankets and white bearskin.

 _How small she is_ , Meryanne reflected, not for the first time. The cradle had been made for Umber babes, and while her firstborn son had suited it just fine, her daughter was different. And just as different had been both pregnancies. Jon's birth had been terribly painful, her son getting far too much of the Umbers and far too less of the Darrys, from his size to his black hair. Her husband had been home then, attending his son's birth in the only way acceptable. He stood right outside the door, listening to Meryanne's every cry, and shouting words of comfort as she struggled to push the world's biggest babe out of her womb. Jon had been uncaring if any of his men heard him. Afterwards he had told her she had done well and bragged to his uncles and anyone else who would listen that southron flowers were stronger than northwomen. Lord Harmon eventually told him to shut up, because he was insulting his own northern mother.

Comparatively, their daughter had slid into the world with ease, announcing her arrival with a croaky cry of protest and the hot, sticky feel of her wrinkled little body plopped down upon her mother's chest.

Meryanne caressed her sleeping infant's cheek with a finger. The babe showed some sign of favoring the Darrys in both coloring and nature, to her delight. The hair on her head was more brown than black, her skin was fair, and she didn't cry whenever she awoke. Meryanne had yet to give her a name. Her husband had named their firstborn Jon, but he wasn't there now, which was a blessing in disguise. He would have chosen something terrible, Eddara, or Branda perhaps. No, for this child, she wanted a beautiful riverlander name, a soft one such as Helaena, or Elinor, or Cynthea. . . Northern names were only suited for boys, short and strong, worn as firmly as one might wear an armor. Karls and Brandons and Rodriks, with fathers named Arron and Erikar and Hendrick. Should Meryanne have had a little boy, it had been her wish that she might name him Harmon, for her goodfather who had died a year ago. Lord Harmon Umber had been an honorable man, loved by smallfolk and noblemen alike, but she could hardly name her daughter that.

 _Hermione._

The name came from nowhere. Meryanne shook her head dazedly. During the whole of her pregnancy her brain had been scattered, disorderly, foreign phrases and queer snatches of memories wedging themselves in there. She blamed the milk of the poppy. She'd been drinking it these past three days to cope with the aftermaths of birthing her girl.

 _Hermione._

Meryanne saw flashes of sorcerers and warlocks robed in black with pointed hats, brandishing magical shafts from which flew stags and dogs and serpents of pale blue flames. She wondered for a second, only a second, if the old gods had sent her the sight, and this was some dream that hadn't happened yet, flittering down like ash. Then she snorted, smoothed the furs covering her daughter and banished the very thought. She was a woman grown who had known twenty-three name days, and had no time for legends of the First Men and fanciful tales of children of the forest. All had been dead for eight thousand years, leaving only carved faces in the weirwood trees behind them.

She put her elbows on the cradle and stared at the babe attentively. Would Jon like this name, Hermione? It did sound southron now that she thought about it. She could just imagine carefully placing her daughter in her husband's arms, amid many protestations from Jon himself that he was a clumsy oaf, sure to drop her. _How bloody small she is_ , he would say. _We need to put some meat on her bones, ay_ _e. Crowfood, would you come look at this little thing? Seven hells, and she's mine._

Meryanne felt tears stinging the back of her eyes and hastily blinked them away. It seemed cruel for children to be born in wartime, knowing not whether their fathers would come back. She went to lay across the great canopied bed, then put her hands on her face, as she had years ago, when a bird arrived from the south announcing a deadly fever had come upon Lord Darry and sent him to join his wife in the hereafter. Meryanne had been well during the day, but when dusk fell, when the unfamiliar dark of her new home closed around her, she had needed to curl around a body, needed the physical assurance that she was not alone in this world. It was her young husband who had hugged her and wiped her tears away.

Meryanne swallowed. There was a lump in her throat, a lump a year old. Weary, she curled into the hollow left by Jon's body, breathing his scent in the pillows, pine needles and old fur mixed with the scents of herbs the midwife had used to ease her pains. Heavenly smells. How much more she would enjoy her babe if he were here with her. She missed him. In fact, so much it surprised her. Theirs had not been a marriage of love or any romantic notions. Theirs had been a fortuitous match made out of opportunity in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, when King Jaehaerys II had called his lords bannermen to fight the Band of Nine upon the Stepstones, and men from all over the Seven Kingdoms fought and bled together. Knights of the Vale fought alongside Dornishmen, ironmen mixed with northmen, storm lords alongside riverlanders. Old grudges melted away, replaced by experience of men at war, the particularly intense, long-lasting bond of brothers-in-arms, camaraderie.

Or so Meryanne's father had told her. Lord Esthor Darry had been a jovial, spirited man who made friends easily, and on the battlefield he had befriended Lord Harmon Umber, a northman whose bravery had awed him. From dawn till dusk Darrys and Umbers sat around a campfire, celebrating, jesting, eating, drinking wine until they were all staggering drunk, and somehow when morn came a match had been made and Meryanne Darry was promised to the young heir of Last Hearth, Jon Umber.

Years later, her father had confessed that he'd been drunk, as much on glory as on wine, and hadn't given it much thought at the time. Meryanne had said nothing to him, but in her bed she wept lakes. She wasn't a great beauty, yet many a man had commented favorably on her brown curls and harp playing. Her septa had instructed her in the womanly arts so when the day came she could make a fine wife to a southerner, mayhap a Mooton or a blue-eyed Mallister or a Vance of Atranta. Meryanne had been understandably disheartened upon learning she was to wed some stranger with a crude giant for a sigil. Jon Umber might have been a future lord—but he was from the _north._ He might as well have been an ogre who ground children's bones for bread. Meryanne's mother, a woman who had always done the proper thing, was sympathetic to her plight but firm in telling her to do her duty. Only her brothers had opposed the marriage until the end. Riverlanders did not wed northerners, and they never forgave their lord father for sending her away.

"What is done is done," Lord Esthor Darry had told his four children tiredly, "even lengthy betrothals are betrothals, and there is no honor in breaking it now."

"Honor?" Jonothor yelled, while Willem stood at his side in silent support. "She is your only daughter. What sort of honor do you have to ship her off like a bag of oats?"

Their father ignored him, instead he turned to Meryanne. "You are my daughter, a highborn lady of Darry blood, and Darrys are no oathbreakers. Will you shame me?"

Meryanne, face wet with tears, had wanted to say _yes_. To weep, to break vases, to scream that her place was here and not in savage lands in the middle of nowhere. But she noticed Willem's grim expression, the anger in Jonothor's brown eyes, and Raymun watching them all wearily from the door.

"I want to be wed at home," she had said, and when time came she dutifully pledged her vows beneath the great dead weirwood in Castle Darry's godswood, because the Umbers kept to the old gods. Her maiden's cloak, russet velvet richly embroidered with the black plowman, was unclasped from her shoulders and replaced by a crimson, heavier one, worked with linked chains in silver thread.

Looking back, Meryanne was only grateful they didn't embroider a giant. Perhaps that was because they already had given her one for all the rest of her life. Jon Umber, her lord husband, presented a spectacle to strike terror into any gently bred maiden's soul. Towering over all the men she knew, fierce-looking with a large beak of a nose, a bluntly square jaw and scars slashing his chest. He reminded Meryanne of the jagged cliff faces of the shores of the Bay of Crabs, all weathered crags and treacherous angles. The beard alone entitled him to direct lineage with wildlings, or so her brother Raymun had claimed.

At first, Meryanne used to weep for her home, but her giant of a husband had made it exceedingly difficult for her to keep her spirits low. He conquered her early fears with gruff kindness, slew her uncertainties with good humor and lusty attentions, brought her furs of wolves and foxes and bears when he went hunting, and treated her always gently.

Meryanne thought of happy memories of her marriage, past summer days with the fresh scent of crisp forest air. She remembered the feel of the sheets tangled around her bare legs as they spent early morns sequestered in their bedchambers. Jon hand-fed her fresh peeled fruits while she laughed and licked the sticky juice from his calloused fingers. In the afternoons she watched him in the practice yard. Sometimes she would join him. She'd stand, tucked into the solid embrace of his larger, stronger body, while he showed her how to position her hands on the grip of a crossbow, how to notch the arrow, to aim. The first few times, she missed the target completely, the sound of the arrow startling her, causing her to flinch. She'd fire into the ground or, if she was very lucky, sail the arrow ten feet above the target. Time and time again, Jon would patiently correct her, his voice a low rumble against the back of her neck as he leaned over and helped her wind back. "Notch, draw, and loose," he'd repeat. "It's not that hard, woman."

She yearned for the comfort of these arms now, for the bellow of his voice, to hear him sing bawdy tales at feasts, the peaceful days of Last Hearth before the war. She wanted an entire lifetime with this man. More nights when he would make love to her in their bed. Watching their son growing tall and strong, doting on their daughter, giving them siblings. Babes with the Umber raven-black hair and perhaps her brown eyes. A family.

Somewhere, her father was laughing.

Meryanne smiled ruefully. He had been right in choosing her husband, even if she had needed seven years and a war to see it. She had sowed in the north, endured loneliness, and in time found much she could love. _Jon will come home_ , she reassured herself. _The gods made and shaped this man to battle. He will come back to me._

"Mother? Are you awake?"

Any thoughts instantly evaporated when Meryanne caught sight of her son's face, his black eyes peeping out from behind her bedchambers' door. He shuffled along in his nightclothes, yawning widely. His black straight hair was standing up in peaks, and there was a red sheet mark on his left cheek.

"Did you sleep well?"

Jon nodded as he climbed on the bed. Meryanne sat up and drew him close against her, burying her nose in his hair and inhaling the sweet scent of soap, feeling hope and strength come back. She was Lady of Last Hearth, she had a keep to manage, lands to defend, people to protect. She had no time to wallow in misery.

Jon soon slipped from her embrace, gazing at her with sleepy yet eager eyes. "Can I see the baby?"

They went to the cradle, and Meryanne stooped down over her little boy, carrying him so he could see inside. Jon looked, then looked again, staring at the bundle then up at his mother.

"Did I look like that?" His tone hinted at disapproval.

"You were bigger, and louder."

Jon nodded satisfyingly. "The babe looks like a doll."

"It's because she is your younger sister, sweetling." She held up his hand and caressed the babe's cheek with it. "See how soft she is?"

"My little sister," Jon repeated, venturing a tentative hand over the side of the blankets.

"Yes, and every sister needs a strong brother to protect her. Will you do that?"

Jon jumped out of her hold and flexed his arms. "I'm strong," he said confidently. "I'll grow strong like Father. The strongest man in the world!" He glanced back at the cradle, frowning. "She can't play swords, can she?"

"She is a girl," Meryanne said, amused. "And too small, besides."

"Artos has a brother. He can play."

"Well, he doesn't have any sister, does he?"

His frown deepened and Meryanne knelt down, taking his hands in hers. "Having sisters can be a good thing, and you could teach her how to play later on."

Jon seemed pacified. "Fine," he shrugged. "What's her name?"

Maryanne pictured black-robed warlocks busting through bright green flames in the great stone fireplace. As soon as it came, the vision disappeared. She stared at the empty hearth, blinking.

"Mother? Moooother. Listen to me!"

"Yes," Meryanne said distractedly. She must be more tired than she had thought. "Don't raise your voice, son. What is it?"

Jon pointed at the cradle insistently. "What is her name?"

 _Hermione._ Again Maryanne saw sorcerers, robed in yellow and scarlet and green, mounting broomsticks and flying up in the air to the sky. Foreign tongues giving way to chants and applauses.

"Can we call her Bean, Mother? I think we should. She's small, just like a bean."

Meryanne shook her head and looked back at her son, who was tiptoeing over the cradle, trying to peer inside without much success. "You are as bad as your father, and no, we are not calling your sister Bean. I have chosen her name already. Hermione, do you like it?"

Jon looked up at her in wonder. "It sounds like Grandfather Harmon."

"Yes," Meryanne said, with the usual pang of grief. She held out her hand to her son. "Come, we will go break our fast in the hall. And ask a servant to write Hermione's name in the registry."

Some hours later, the steward brought the thick book where he compiled his dusty lists of weddings, births, and deaths, and added the entry in a neat handwriting, under the watchful eye of his mistress.

 _"Jon Umber, fourth of his name, born to Lord Jon Umber and Lady Meryanne Umber in the 280th year after Aegon's Landing at the Last Hearth. Black of eye, black of hair, and fair complected."_

 _"Hermione Umber, born to Lord Jon Umber and Lady Meryanne Umber in the 283rd year after Aegon's Landing at the Last Hearth. Brown of eye, brown of hair, and fair complected."_


	2. Chapter 2

_**2**_

The Greatjon was in a foul mood. Warren could see it on his face as he crossed the bailey with long strides, ignoring the men calling out to him. Highborn and servants alike were already awake, had been for hours. A castle demanded early rising, especially in autumn. The courtyard rung with sounds of steel, archers firing at practice butts, barking of hounds. Roys Woodfield, the harsh sour master-at-arms, was drilling the children, using some old sacks stuffed with straw for mock warriors. Among them were Lord Umber's son and nephew. Artos was the oldest at ten, yet Jon was four inches taller and broader in the chest and shoulders. He was his father's son in that, nor did he ever miss a day's practice. Today was spearwork under Roys's guidance and bellows. "Stick and twist and rip, but get the bloody thing out! You'll be wanting it soon enough for the next one. Too slow, Artos, too damned slow. If you can't do it quicker, go back to the nursery. Jon, get your weight behind your thrust. There's a lad. And in and out and in and out."

The Greatjon had stopped to watch. "You lot don't hear so good," he called out. "Do I need to lop off an ear or two, boys? Who's first?"

Warren had a good view too from where he stood, under the covered walkway of weathered grey stone that arched between the two gatehouse towers. He was breaking his fast on fried bread as he did every morning, and wondering if Lady Umber had been talking treason again. That might explain the Greatjon's mood. It was hard to see how the woman could cause so much trouble. If Lord Umber stood an inch over seven feet, his wife stood an inch over five. Warren could have spanned her waist with his two hands. Lady Umber was kind-hearted and soft-spoken, everyone agreed, but what she said about King Robert could cost her her head. "That kinslayer is no king of mine," she had been heard to say. "An usurper reigns over us, gods save us."

The Greatjon himself didn't give a kettle of piss who sat the throne. _Usurper or not, things went the way they went, and it was all years ago,_ Warren had heard him complain to his brothers. _What can it matter to a woman who rules the land, anyhow?_

Not that anyone asked, but the guardsman agreed. Kings rose and fell, and horses and smallfolk went about their business. Try telling that to lords and ladies. King Robert wasn't likely to ever ride north of the Neck. He'll be sitting in his red castle and fussing over his southron subjects—even a highborn woman should see that.

The sun was low in the west by the time Warren found out more. Tristram, the strapping master of horse's son who liked to boast that he had fucked all the wenches in Last Hearth, sauntered to the guards' barracks like the gossiping goose he was. "The Greatjon got chewed off about the maester again, Lady Meryanne was talking something fierce while she trimmed his beard this morning. I have it from her handmaid. Dolyse says the Greatjon sat there, like a sheep at sharing time, eying the razor as if at any moment it would fly from his wife's dainty fingers to his throat. Why doesn't he go to the barber, I ask you? Dolyse reckons Lady Umber doesn't want a husband whose beard is always full of breadcrumbs." Tristram laughed. "There's too much of the south in that one."

Warren scratched his thick, unruly beard, which shone bright orange in the sun. He felt a passing sadness that he had no woman to trim it. "Are you sure it was about maesters?" he asked the groom. "Again? The lady's wasting both her breath and time if that's so."

Lord Umber's opinion of maesters was well-known. "The Others bugger your bloody maesters," was what he told his lady wife when she last breached the subject, if the talk could be believed. "I wouldn't trust them to clean my chamber pot. The gods only know what they mix in those potions they give you, and where they come from. Some of them are baseborn, sons of tavern wenches, whores, and shepherd girls. Ask Hother if you don't believe me."

Warren didn't know if maesters were trustworthy or useful, but he knew that Hother Whoresbane had learned ravencraft at Oldtown, attended to the castle's rookery, read and wrote letters. The old man had been here before Warren was born, serving old Harmon and even Hoarfrost before him.

"The Greatjon keeps telling her," Tristram continued. "We don't need no maester, Whoresbane is shrewd as they come, it's winter besides, all prices are high, and blah blah. . ."

"He is no healer, though," pointed out Warren. That was Lady Umber's recurring argument. She said she had more faith in a maester trained in the great Citadel of Oldtown to tend to her children than a mad old man. "And might be Whoresbane would like a little help, the man's getting too old for the job. I don't know much about letters, but it seems to me two pair of eyes's better than the one."

"Did the Others take your wits? Whoresbane, sharing his tower with a southron? He hates the breed. Even if Lady Umber brought one here, it won't serve. Never knew a maester to heal with his entrails hanging out."

"What? You think he would _gut_ him?"

"I said so, didn't I?" Tristram strode off shouting at a stableboy.

Warren went to the snug room where the portcullis was worked and poured himself a cup from the flagon of mulled wine, thinking over Tristram's words. Was that why they didn't have a maester at Last Hearth? Because of Lord Umber's uncle? It might be true. Or not. People said the Whoresbane was a solitary fellow who knew queer tongues and tales, an old perverse warlock who preferred the company of men to ladies and pretty wenches. Though ravens came and went from his tower, the man himself spent most of his days behind closed doors with his birds. Warren caught glimpses of him, but always from afar—eating in the great hall, riding out with his brother or lord nephew, but most often watching from the rookery's window seat, his long white hair blowing in the wind.

Warren returned to the postern gate, nodding at two other guardsmen walking rounds before sitting next to Hookhand, who was chewing sourleaf and sharpening the edge of his axe on a whetstone. His real name was Boris, but he was called Hookhand for the curving metal hook screwed to the stump of his right wrist. He had lost his real hand to a wildling's axe. "I've heard Tristram's bleatings," Hookhand said brusquely. "I believe one word in ten. The fool ought t' shut his yap about m'lady. That loose tongue will get him hurt one day, you tell him."

"You know how he is," Warren told the older man. "Tristram spends his time gossiping. That's just what he does. If the Greatjon was near, he would never had said that. Behind his back, yes, but never to his face." He finished his wine and set to honing his longsword. "Do you suppose we'll have us some southron lordling from the Citadel? Might be I'm a fool, but I don't know that Whoresbane never cured any illness before. Lady Umber wants her children to be healthy."

"Seven bloody hells. Not you too." Hookhand glared at him. "I heard that child crying once. Not worth wasting good coin, you ask me. Do you know how much a maester cost? The girl'll grow out of it, see if she don't. No one ever died from having nightmares. And the younger son just needs to eat better, is all."

Warren wasn't so sure. While Jon Umber was everything a lad ought to be, tall and bold for his age and growing every day, his brother Kolben was born before his proper time and sick so often afterward that no one had expected him to live. He was all of four, small of frame, and never seen out of the nursery. Some said he was pretty, with his lady mother's fine features and pale skin. "No, the boy is deformed, as I understand it," Tristram claimed. "I've heard some around say as how he turns the stomach. One leg is more like a flipper than a leg. Frog-like."

As to their sister. . . Warren oft saw the girl. Hermione was a sweet, healthy-looking child, always fleeing her nursemaid to speak to everyone and keep the castle informed of all the opinions she had on life. The issue came from her queer fascination with dragons, centaurs, merlings and the like. She could spin threads out of thin air, stories of magic, winged horses or men who could change themselves into animals at will. Once she told Torrha the nursemaid that she "used to be a witch with a lion sigil, and living in a castle. Then the bad masked men came to the castle, and I died". Torrha had been horrified, and the other girls whispered that the girl was plagued by nightmares too, woke screaming and clutching her chest in the black of the night. A dozen healers and herbwomen came and went at Last Hearth, trying to appease her and her brother both, including an old crone from the clans of the hills, but none of the visits were fruitful. Many servants blamed Whoresbane. The man was accursed, they said, and the weakling lording and his half-mad sister were a punishment sent by the gods for his sins. These things were not said in the Greatjon's hearing.

Warren understood why poor Lady Meryanne desperately wanted a maester.

He said as much to Hookhand but the guardsman turned his head and spat a wad of well-chewed sourleaf out of the left side of his mouth. "Stable gossip and fool's talk. Eh, the lies they tell! Whoresbane is a godly man, and the little girl fancies herself a child of the forest, that's all. Her brother was born too weak, not crippled. Such a tiny thing. He scarce had strength enough to nurse, almost died that one. Still. The gods make sicknesses, that much is true. A man can't do a bloody buggering thing about the gods."

Warren knew little about that. He went to the godswood sometimes, and prayed to the great weirwood to lend strength to his arms, but elsewise he let the gods be.

"The Greatjon's been too lax, I will allow, but this has gone on long enough," Hookhand grumbled. "All this talk about maesters. . . madness, madness and folly. They have one of those at Karhold, I'm told, a softbellied fool who likes sweetcakes and little boys a bit too much. Mark my words, lad, there'll never be a maester in _this_ castle."

But both Tristram the master of horse's son and Boris Hookhand would be proven wrong, for that five moons later a party arrived at the gates, from the Citadel of Oldtown. Warren had drawn watch that day, and he was dicing with three of the men-at-arms and red-headed Orston Lake, the captain of the guard. When they demanded passage in Lady Umber's name, though, Lake barked an order, and it was Warren who was sent to the Black Keep. He found Lady Umber in the kitchen storerooms, going over the week's menu with the cook. Her brown hair was pulled back into a braided crown, and she wore a dress of blue wool bordered with white that hugged her rounded belly. Warren thought every pregnant lady should look as she did. Her delicate beauty wasn't diminished by her pregnancy, nor was her zeal in household work.

Though she did drop everything when he told her of the stranger at the gates. Without even taking the time to put on a cloak or some furs, she crossed the room to follow him outside, bracing herself on the stone walls even as Warren offered his elbow to assist. "I am very round," she confessed. "It makes simple matters such as walking, standing, and breathing a tad laborious."

Outside the noon air was clear and crisp as ever, though the grass was the vibrant green of spring. Shuffling along the small gate, they passed before the stables and kennels and crossed the bailey to the gates where stood the lone stranger surrounded by the other guardsmen in boiled leathers and dust-red cloaks.

Orston Lake was the first to notice their approach. "My lady, this man says he's coming from the—"

"The Citadel," Lady Umber finished before turning her attention to the wide-eyed, smaller man standing beside him, all garbed in greys and blacks. "I am Lady Meryanne Umber. You must have had a long and tiring journey, maester. I will see you to your chambers."

It seemed to Warren that the poor fellow looked like a scared little boy among the hulking northmen. His teeth chattered as he spoke. "I'll be grateful, my lady."

Lady Umber motioned for a serving girl, giving orders to have a hot meal brought to the northeast tower right away, and dismissed all the guardsmen but Warren, whom she asked to escort them. As they made their way through the yard, the two southerners fell into niceties and conversation.

"You are young," Lady Umber remarked as they climbed up the tower's stone stairs. Warren muttered an agreement. Maester Geremys, as was his name, had a narrow face, pointed nose and anxious green eyes beneath a head of limp blond hair. He was slightly taller than the lady and couldn't have been much older than her, though his robes gave him an air of somber wisdom.

"You need not fear, my lady," he squeaked, his fingers going to the collar about his neck. "I forged my silver links when I learned the art of healing and medicine from Archmaester Ebrose, my copper is for my study of history, black iron for ravenry, and gold for money and accounts."

"How old are you?"

"Six-and-thirty."

Lady Umber looked as shocked as Warren felt. "You should cultivate a beard, the wilder and more unkempt the better," he counseled the maester. "I've seen wenches with thicker mustaches. You need something fiercer. A sealskin cloak. Or a bearskin, better still. And let your hair grow long."

They paused at the oak door at the top of the tower and Warren took a step forward. "Here, let me—"

Lady Umber gave a great push with her shoulder and the door opened, the iron hinges shrieking protest. "I have lived here for a decade," she said matter-of-factly, "and I have yet to see anyone using this room beside myself and my good-uncle Hother. I am afraid my kinsmen are no keen readers."

The air in the round room smelled of musty paper and aging fabrics and times gone by. One wall was lined with wooden bookshelves, crammed with leatherbound books and bins of ancient scrolls; another held racks of ointments, yellowing herbs, and potions. A serving girl was wiping the stone table by the light of an oil lamp, and coughing up dust.

Books and letters were an obscure mystery to Warren, and he waited boredly as Lady Umber and her maester went about the room, until they came back to the curling stone steps and the lady led the way up to another door. There was a smaller room beyond, boasting a featherbed, a chamber pot, a window and a hearth. All the furnishings were clean, the stone floor was covered with wolfskins and red robes trimmed with brown had been laid out on the bed. It was better than his cell in the barracks, Warren allowed, though that long staircase was nothing to envy.

"I did not know you would be arriving so soon," Lady Umber was telling the maester. "The servants will have your things taken there. I suspect that you will be anxious to rest. Anything that you may need, let the girl downstairs know. Her name is Alyce."

"Thank you, my lady," Maester Geremys said graciously. He stood beside the narrow window, looking out. The square brick towers of the Last Hearth were black silhouettes outlined against the setting sun, with spots of lights glowing as candles and hearth fires were lit in chambers and halls. In the yard, guardsmen in red-and-brown stood along the walls, watching people come and go, japing with the girls drawing water from the well.

Lady Umber was watching the little man, not the view. "I must warn you, Maester Geremys, we might live in a castle but this is not the south. Last Hearth is at the end of the world. We are farther north than any of the other noble houses, and wildlings attacks are not unheard of. Food is plain, though filling, and men are as hard and unyielding as the Wall."

"A maester must goes where he is sent," Geremys replied manfully, yet his face paled. "This is my collar and I must wear it."

"I suppose so."

The maester glanced at her oddly. "You dress like a northerner but your speech is pure southron, my lady. How comes?"

 _Does she look like a bloody northwoman to you?_ Warren wanted to ask, but Lady Umber only laughed. "Southron blood runs in my veins," she said. "I was born a Darry of the riverlands, and I wed my lord husband, Jon, in my seventeenth year. Our fathers knew each other of old. As you did, I left the south, my home, my ancestral castle, my family. . ." She placed a hand on her swollen belly. "You have come to a good place, maester. Within a few moons, it will be and will feel like home to you. That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember."

Maester Geremys nodded solemnly, and they left him to settle. After Warren had escorted Lady Umber to her bedchambers, he went back to the gatehouse where Tristram was already seated, merrily discussing with the men on guard. Warren swore the lad could smell fresh gossip from miles away. He went to sit with them, to hear what they had to say about the new addition to the castle. Tristram opined that at least now the Greatjon would stop quarreling with his wife, but the others only laughed.

"Got me a silver stag says that this maester don't stay longer than a fortnight," said ruddy Ellard Blackbeard. "He'll never make it here. The southerners are weaklings with porridge between their ears, full of girlish complaints—it's too cold, the furs smell funny, why do you fight without jeweled armors. . ."

The others hooted and edged bets but Warren was not so certain. Lady Umber was from the riverlands and she had been ten years at the Last Hearth, he remembered, that was how long he had been in the guard. If a woman could do it, surely a man could, even one feeble and squirrelly-looking. Warren resolved to keep an eye on the matter. It wouldn't be that hard; he knew everything that went on in the castle just by keeping his ears open as he stood watch.

There was always talk of Maester Geremys.

In the earliest days after his coming, Warren overheard a maid confiding to her man about the Greatjon's reaction. Apparently the giant hadn't been told. "He was angry at Lady Umber," the girl whispered. "He told her, 'you want a southron friend that bad, it's your folly, but see he don't wander off where he doesn't need to be or I'll lop his head off'".

The Greatjon never needed to lop anyone's head off, as it happened. Even he was glad of his wife's actions as the weeks went by. The castle suddenly seemed to have far fewer sickly men than before, including his own son. It was good to see the little lordling so healthy. Everyone remarked on how sure Kolben's steps were and how fast he ran. And his sister, Warren didn't know what potion Geremys was feeding her, but she slept soundly from evenfall till dusk and there had been no talk of madness since he arrived. Even the smallfolk, at first as fearful as they were curious, had begun to take a queer liking to "the little maester". In the space of a year, every man, from guard to cook's boy, had benefited from his potions and care which was much better than the herbwomen from Eastpoint, the village half a league southeast along the Last River. Last time Warren had seen it for himself, when he had been high atop the maester's tower for a head wound he'd gotten during a melee. "I would suggest that you avoid rich foods, strong drink, and further blows between your eyes," Geremys told him dryly, "but I learned long ago that you northmen are deaf to sense. Begone with you. I have other fools to tend."

Warren heeded his counsel, just for the sake of proving him wrong, and when summer dawned only a patch of black skin was left from the wound, to his delight. The Greatjon oft said a battle had to be dull if you got out unscathed. Warren was sharing this wisdom and comparing his scars with Lonnel Snow, another fellow man-at-arms, who himself was in the process of stripping his jerkin to count up the ones on his chest, when young Jon ran into them. He fell onto his bottom, letting the blunted sword he was clutching in his hand fall with a clatter and Lonnel cursed blasphemously.

Unabashed, the boy stood back up and asked what two of his words meant.

So Lonnel defined them, with the proviso that he not share his expanded vocabulary with his lady mother.

Jon nodded in a serious manner. He was eight, not quite five feet tall. Of late he had been sprouting fast, though he had a long way to go before he'd be catching up to his father. "I need to change out of this quick," he said, tugging at his linen tunic. "My greatuncle is leaving to hunt with the men and Father says I could join them. Crowfood is going to show me how to skin a deer."

Warren wiped the sweat off his brow. Dark circles stained his own roughspun tunic under both arms. The sky was blue, the sun blazing, and the woods ought to be full of game. He would have joined them if only it wasn't so blasted hot.

Lonnel was of the same mind. "It's too hot for that, unless you have a soak in the Last River. I never saw a summer like this one."

"Jon!" came a demanding voice, immediately followed by Lady Umber. She strode toward them, wearing blue silks and a preoccupied frown. "Where are your siblings?" she asked the boy.

"Where do you think?"

The answer was bold as you please, but even Warren could have guessed where were the youngest Umbers. Andric wasn't old enough to leave his cradle in the nursery, but the other two disappeared everyday in the northeast tower, to frown over scrolls and parchments and great leather tomes with Maester Geremys. The flaxen-haired man tutored the children in things like letters, sums, and history, and had naught but praise for them. At times, Warren wondered how such intelligent children could really be the Greatjon's. Then Kolben would open a door and run into the door frame and he would know.

He looked back at the firstborn, who was flipping his sword in the air and catching it again, almost boredly. It seemed to Warren that as the heir, he should be the one poring over scrolls, though he spent all of his time out in the practice yard.

Lady Umber shared this view. "Why aren't you up there with them?"

"In the library?" Jon looked revolted at the very idea. "I don't think so."

"Do not frown at me. You will need to know warcraft and heraldry as the future lord of Last Hearth. Hermione could recite more arms than you, I'm sure."

"Oh, right. You're always taking Hermione and Kol's side, because oh, they're so perfect and clever and well-mannered. . ."

"You know I do not," Lady Umber chided. "I love you all equally, but differently, because you are all different, are you not?"

Jon just shrugged, the gesture such an exact duplicate of his father's right down to the same shoulder that it made both his mother and the guardsmen smile wryly. The woman kissed the boy's brow and let him go on his way, before setting off, probably for the library tower.

Warren was practicing at swordplay in the yard with Konrad Lake, the captain of the guard's son, repetitively running through basic drills of thrust, parry, block when he saw not only Lady Umber and her children again, but also Lord Umber. The exercise had lost its novelty years ago, so both men stopped to look, their chests bare and slick with sweat. Konrad thrust the point of his longsword into the ground and leaned upon the pommel, but Warren walked for a bit, stretching his arms. Maester Geremys peered from the covered walkway, squirrelly and fanning himself but curious, saw Warren standing there and came to join them. "Lord Umber has bought Hermione and Kolben their first ponies," he explained, looking in the stables's direction. Lady Umber noticed him and waved happily. The maester smiled, sheepish, and turned over a barrel to sit, almost stumbling. He knocked over several ones beside it in the process.

Warren scratched his beard. He had to be careful around the southron, because he couldn't help laughing at him sometimes. Maester Geremys had courtesies fit for a lord's table, but he was very clumsy. He tended to drop things—particularly around Lady Umber, but she pretended not to notice.

"Maester!" Hermione cried, charging away from the stables and heading toward them at a speed that her mother wouldn't have liked. Picking up her skirts she ran full out, her young brother close on her heels.

Maester Geremys held out his hands to hold hers. "What is it, child?"

"Father got us _ponies,"_ Hermione said excitedly. "He says Jon has outgrown his and it's time he had a real horse and we—me and Kol—had ponies. Mine is brown and Kol's has white spots, but they are both pretty." She whipped around. "Aren't they pretty, Kol? Aren't they?"

Her brother only shrugged in answer. He was playing with a wooden knight and twisting the arms and legs. That was the difference. Both Jon and Hermione were exhausting and bold, always smiling, loud, happy to talk. Kolben faded into the background, all quiet, suspiciously looking at the world as if he would like to take it apart and put it back together again.

"Mother says we have to think of a name. I was thinking maybe Balerion, like Aegon's dragon. But I'm not sure. I like 'Ser Brave', too. A pony isn't a dragon, or a knight, I _know,_ but there aren't any famous ponies."

Warren exchanged amused looks with Konrad.

"You should go try it first," the maester suggested. "Your lord father will teach you how to ride, with the master of horse."

Hermione frowned up at him. While Jon and Kolben had hair and eyes as black as a starless night, the girl took after her mother. She was an inquisitive, self-possessed thing, her brown hair long enough to plait into a braid, but so thick and curly that it slipped out into loose locks around her face. Her eyes were a lighter brown, and her eyebrows straight and level. A clever little girl, Warren thought, nearing six and yet speaking as clearly as a girl of eight. Fair too, though her brother Kolben would win any beauty contest. He was so fine-featured people oft mistook him for a girl.

"Can't we just play with them instead of riding?" Hermione asked. "I'd prefer grooming my pony, like the stableboys do the horses."

"You are _supposed_ to ride it," Warren told her. "Regular and long, be it walk, trot, canter, so that the animal gets the idea. As you grow, your lord father will put you on a larger pony and eventually you will be tall enough to ride a horse."

"But what if I fall off?" She sounded nervous. "I can't know what goes in the pony's mind."

"It's not that far to the ground," said Konrad, shrugging. "When I was your age I was always tumbling off ponies and horses. You just have to get back on."

The girl only looked more anxious after that, but Lady Umber came to usher her along to the stables, where old Jasper had saddled the small ponies and awaited.

"Hermione first," Lady Umber said.

The master of horse held out a hand but the girl took a step back. Her pale skin had begun to turn red, a sign of impending temper. "No. I don't want to."

"Now, come on, girl. It's easy, you'll see, I'll help you." The moment the master of horse touched her sides to lift her, she screamed and screamed. Jasper recoiled as if she were a snake.

The Greatjon had no such qualms. "Hermione Umber! You stop your screaming now." He reached for his daughter, who was stubbornly refusing to move. In his arms she writhed around so much it looked as if he were wrestling a wet fish. When he was done with her, he helped settle Kolben onto the back of the second pony.

"We ready?" the master of horse asked.

"Go," Hermione ordered, though her voice trembled. And so began round after round after round of loops along the perimeter of the yard.

Warren went to clean himself at the washing well, using a rag and a bucket of water. He returned to the outer yard in time to watch the children feed their ponies blades of grass.

"Watch your fingers," the master of horse said when Kolben didn't let go of a piece of grass quickly enough. "We're lucky enough that these beasts understand the difference between Umbers and forage, aye, lad?"

Kolben looked back at him, unlaughing. He wasn't a laugher. Warren would describe him as shy, but his aloofness went beyond that. Mistrustful, maybe. None of the men knew what to do with him, least of all the Greatjon. Crowfood advised that he ought to give the lad a good beating, but the Greatjon said the child looked so pitiful he could not bring himself to hit him.

Warren noticed that Whoresbane had come down from his tower to grace them all with his presence. He was helping his greatniece brush out the pony's coat, while the girl prattled on and on. "Birds eat corn and insects and dragons eat meat, but what do bears eat?"

"Fish, mostly."

"And what do horses eat?"

"Grass. Hay."

"What about boars? What do _they_ eat?"

"Children who ask too many questions."

Hermione's mouth dropped open before she clapped it shut. Whoresbane looked shrewdly at her and unraveled a rope that was lying around, waving it in her direction.

He took a step forward, grinning malevolently. "So you better be quiet, or I'll rope you and feed you to the ones in the woods."

"You can't!" Hermione yelped and ran to her lady mother, ducking behind her skirts, her face full of concern.

"He is just teasing, sweetling," said Lady Umber. "I promise. He is not going to rope you. Or eat you."

"Yes, I will." Whoresbane ran at them, but Hermione had caught on. She laughed and ran for the keep as the gaunt old man gave chase and cackled threats.

"Better run! I'll pull out your entrails if I catch you!"

The girl only squealed in delight.

"He is good with children," Warren observed.

"He is," Maester Geremys said, sounding as perplexed.

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you all so much for the follows and reviews, I didn't know people would want to read this. I hope you'll like this story._

 _Pieter250: Thank you! I d_ _ef agree with your analysis, Hermione can b_ _e blatantly ins_ _ensitiv_ _e and tightly wound_ _sometimes, no matter how fair-mind_ _ed and honorabl_ e _she is. Sup_ _er logical, sup_ _er brilliant, but_ _grating and abrasiv_ _e to oth_ _ers (Lavender with her rabbit, Luna etc). Th_ _en again if sh_ _e was p_ _erf_ _ect sh_ _e wouldn't b_ _e int_ _er_ _esting. I dislike the trope adult's-mind-in-a-child's-body, I much pr_ _ef_ _er h_ _er having visions of anoth_ _er s_ _elf if it mak_ _es any s_ _ens_ _e. In short: sam_ _e charact_ _er, sam_ _e cor_ _e valu_ _es but with some of the medieval/westerosi influence, as you point out._

 _I love the Umbers, the Starks too, but I'm not sure about the pairing. Hermione/Robb?_


	3. Chapter 3

**_3_**

Hermione was out in the godswood.

It was her favorite place, safe and peaceful, earthy and ancient. Great oaks, tall sentinels, hawthorn and ash and chestnut trees and ironwoods stretched toward the sky and shut out the clamor of the castle. Everything was quiet and still but for the flutters of birds, the murmur of crickets, leaves rustling in the wind.

After offering her thanksgiving, Hermione knelt beneath the great heart tree to pray, as she often did. The pale thick roots twisted around her like gnarled arms and the dark red leaves painted shadows across the white snow, pale and swaying.

"Please make it so Father comes home," she begged the old gods. "Keep him safe, with Uncle Osric and the others. Please give them strength so that they win the war, and Mother too, make her happy. Keep them safe." If she said it enough, they were sure to hear. "Please, please, _please."_

When she was done praying, she sat back and stared at the face carved in the trunk of the weirwood. It was a fierce-looking one, wrathful with deep-cut red eyes and a snarling wide mouth. But Hermione liked the anger; it looked as if the tree were about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after the rebellious ironmen. It would serve them right. She placed her arms around the tree, her cheek to the trunk, and felt something stirring inside, calling, like a song sung only for her. _The old gods_ , she thought. _Or th_ _e children of the forest_. It had been the children of the forest who had carved eyes and faces in the heart trees, her lord father had told her, a mysterious people of the woods, who took naps beneath mushroom caps and bathed on leaves dappled with morning dew and made their homes in the hollowed trunks of giant oak trees, who called to ravens and direwolves and monstrous snowbears with ancient magics.

Those stories always left Hermione awestruck, and the godswood made them come to life. There were lurking powers here, in the trees and the stream and the stones, in the sky and the stars and the wind, a deep, wild magic as old as the world itself. Sometimes she felt it elsewhere too, in glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows, disturbingly familiar, hazy memories that were gone before they could be grasped.

 _You are imagining things,_ Maester Geremys would insist. _You should turn your thoughts to reality and not daydreams_. He always told her not to speak about things like that. "You can tell me, or mayhaps even your mother," he said, "but otherwise, when trees talk to you, child, you shouldn't tell anyone else."

"Why not?"

"Because other people cannot hear them, and it makes them anxious. They will think you lie."

 _But I don't_ , Hermione thought. Magic and wizards and fantastic things were not lies, never. Who could doubt it, when there were dragons and giants, children of the forest and gods in the heart trees?

 _The dragons are dead,_ Maester Geremys would firmly reply. _They did use to exist, not like wizards, but now they are all dead._

Witches existed too, Hermione knew, and deep down inside, she understood that made her a freak. After hugging the heart tree a last time, she stood, brushed the snow off her woolen dress and fur-trimmed cloak and made her way back to the keep.

Her boots tore ankle-deep holes into the fresh-fallen snow, and her knees were damp from when she had sat to pray. It had snowed overnight, even though it was summer. Flakes started coming down right around bedtime and this morning snowfall lay thick upon the ground, blanketing the grass, dusting the keep and outer buildings with white and weighing down the trees in the wildwood. The world was a tapestry painted in whites and greens and browns. White towers and white ground and white roofs, green leaves and brown trees and the blue-grey sky above. It was not the first time Hermione saw snow, she had known winter twice. While her brothers were born in the summer, she came to the world during a snowstorm that transformed the black stone castle into white crystal for days. _My winter child_ , her mother called her. The second time she had known snow was the year before, during another winter when there were heavier, colder falls than this. Maester Geremys had called yestermorn's fall a 'rare summer snow'.

From the inner bailey came a chorus of yells and grunts, voices and breathless laughs. No doubt everyone wanted to play in the snow before the yard was shoveled. As Hermione crossed the covered walkway leading to the Black Keep, she peeked out a window to view the boys in their natural animal state. She saw them all gathered in front of the kennels, around and on top of a huge mound that was half-dirt, half-snow. A body clad in furs whirled down the brownish hill and Hermione knew what game they were playing, the exceedingly violent one dubbed Giant of the Mountain.

The way the game was played, boys climbed up the mountain and the one who was on top was the Giant, and others had to knock him down if they hoped to win. There were no rules. You could bite the Giant, beat him bloody, kick him in the crotch, and hope to the gods that you wouldn't crack your skull when he threw you down from the mountain. There were many boys playing, Hermione saw, her cousins, which meant her brother Jon wasn't far, some of the youngest stableboys, the kennelmaster's little brother, and also Bertin Lake, Rufus the cook's son, and Sammith who was a potboy.

Hermione did not care for either of those three. Uncouth beasts, they were, and Bertin the worst of all. Once he caught a rat, a fat one, grey and wriggling and biting, and used it to terrorize the girls after Artos said he'd never dare. He'd chased Hermione halfway across the castle and made her give the rat a kiss before he'd let her go. That rat got kissed a lot, she recalled, Bertin was a fast little devil.

There was a rustling sound and her brother Kolben suddenly emerged in her view and climbed up the window. He came to stand beside her, shaking snow out of his wavy black hair. His cheeks were reddened from the cold and his blue cloak looked damp, even the fur collar.

"Who's on top?" Hermione asked him.

"Who do you think?"

It was a stupid question, she had to admit. In all her life she had only known one permanent Giant of the Mountain, her nine-year-old brother, Jon Umber. He was the one who took after their lord father the most. This made him about a foot taller and two stones heavier than anyone else foolishly attempting to knock him from his pedestal.

A body came flying down near the kennels, screaming as he crashed down. The hounds began to bark furiously and howl at him.

"It's the cook's boy," said Kol as he clambered up the windowsill to see better. "Jon's not japing around up there. I think he broke his nose."

Hermione pointed with her finger. "Look at these idiots."

From their vantage point they could see four younger boys try to attack Jon from behind. He spun around and stiff-armed them two at a time. Laughing hysterically, he tossed a few right back down the mound; others, he headbutted and tackled before discarding their bodies. The defeat of an entire troupe took about fifteen seconds.

"That was brave but stupid," Hermione told Kolben, who nodded.

"They should swarm him from all sides," he said. "Maybe chain him."

A crying toddler crawled up next to them, without cloak and gloves, which were now resting somewhere on the other side of the yard. A strategy Jon had undoubtedly prepared beforehand. "He took my gloves!" the boy wailed. "He took my hat! He threw them in a puddle! That's not _fair!"_

An irritated look was all the answer he got from Kolben. Hermione could have guessed what he was thinking, _Why do you play with them, stupid?_ Kol took no interest in the savage roughhousing and brawling their brother and cousins were so fond of. Their lady mother called him 'delicate', the master-at-arms preferred 'girlish'. Hermione once heard her father say that all the gods had given Jon, they had denied Kolben. The two of them had the black eyes and black hair of the Umbers, though the similarities ended there. Thin, with thick-lashed eyes in a sharpboned face, Kol was as fair as a girl. "Pretty little maiden," their greatuncle Mors called him.

Up on the mound of snow, Jon was now hurling down snowballs and insults. "You CRAVENS! Is that all you got? I _said,_ is that all you got?"

"You knocked my tooth loose, fat oaf!" Rufus yelled back.

"What are a few teeth? Your father's a cook, you can live years on oaten porridge, you slow-witted bunghole."

Sammith looked miserable. "Can't we play another game, Umber? It's too bloody cold for the Giant. My mother says you can lose your ears and toes to the cold. Frostbite, she says."

Jon hooted, slapping his leg. "Frostbite? Sounds like someone has water for blood. What's the worst that can happen? Lose a toe? What's one toe? You can be cold when you're dead!"

Hermione grew tired of watching the others having fun. So did her brother. "Do you want to play?" he asked her. "I'd like to build a snowman. A big one with a nose and mouth and arms and maybe a sword so he can be a warrior."

"Why not," she said. "With this much snow, we could make the biggest snowman ever."

They soon discovered how much work it took, and decided to build small ones. Hermione rolled balls across the white ground to make heads while Kol looked for big, thick sticks to make the arms. The godswood was ideal for playing, they had both agreed. The snow was untouched and came almost to the top of their boots and there was no short supply of sticks and leaves. They worked until their noses were afire and hands numb with cold. Four complete snowmen had risen by midday, all different. One was meant to be their lord father; it was the biggest snowman of the lot. The one who lacked a hand was that old scary man from the household guard, the girl was Meg of the kitchens who always slipped them blackberry tarts and biscuits. And Kolben insisted the last one was a dragon king, though to Hermione's eyes it looked more like a lizard. They armed them all with spears made of sticks and put snowy halfhelms on their heads.

"Even Meg?" Kol wanted to know. "She's a girl."

"It's war. Not only men die during wars."

Then he showed Hermione his secret place in the bole of an ancient oak where he had hidden his treasures. There were shiny pebbles red and blue and violet that they used for the snowmen's eyes, and scraps of silk that became Snow Meg's hair. The godswood was silent but for the wind sighing up amongst the leaves, the squirrels chittering to one another, and the rare crow up in the sky. Somewhere in the trees a bird was drilling holes.

Kol looked up, tilting his head. "Woodpecker!"

"That was easy," Hermione huffed. "I'll take the next." They both held still. There was another bird call, a squeaky song of jingling notes going high and low, and she exclaimed, "Longspur!"

"I liked this one. My turn."

This time they had to wait longer until they heard a rapid-fire screaming call, short but sharp and repeated. Kol looked uncertain. "I don't know. Geese? No. A shrike."

"Goshawk," Hermione pronounced. She cupped her hands around her mouth and made shrill, wheezy noises. _"This_ is a shrike," she told her brother airily. She usually won at this game. Their father's uncle Hother knew all the bird calls and songs and taught them; snow shrikes, crossbills, robins, pretty grosbeaks and redpolls. . . He taught them the feathers too. Birds left their feathers lying around all the time.

They walked around the godswood, ears pointed to the sky, listening for more birds. In the lowest branches of a pine tree was a majestic white bird, with catlike yellow eyes and black-marked wings. It cocked its head and hooted at them.

"It's an owl," Hermione said breathlessly.

"What is it doing here?" Kol asked, suspicious. "Uncle Hother says owls live round lakes. Not forests."

"It must belong to a wizard. Or a witch."

The snowy owl took off, gracefully flapping his snow white wings and flew above their heads.

"A wizard?"

"Wizards do that, they use owls to send letters to places far away," Hermione explained. "They put parchments in their beaks or tie letters to their legs and then they send them up in the air."

Her brother's eyes said he didn't believe her. Just like the maester didn't believe about the magic in the weirwood. It was pretty obvious to Hermione why. Other people didn't know these things. Only she did.

"That's not true."

"It _is."_

"How do you know?"

"I did it before, sending a letter. In my dreams."

And just as soon as she said it, she remembered what Maester Geremys had also told her, that she shouldn't let other people know about the dreams.

"You're stupid. Dreams aren't real. And you don't have an owl."

"Well, I didn't say I had one, exactly."

Kol crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Then how did you _do it_?"

"I don't know. I guess I just did it inside my head."

"You're a stupid liar."

His words were like a slap to the face. Hermione felt their sting.

"I am not!"

"Then tell that owl to come back."

"I can't." Hermione's voice grew smaller. She should never have told him. The maester was right. No one could understand. "It doesn't work like that."

Kol turned his back on her and walked away. "You can't because you lie," he said over his shoulder, "that's why."

Heat crept up Hermione's neck. Why was it so hard for people to believe her? She waited until her brother had disappeared to leave the godswood, brooding. If only she could have proofs, not just the images in her head. She pictured herself ticking off facts on her fingers: _this, this, and this proves you jackanapes are wrong_ , and everyone gasping in shock, realizing she was right after all. How sweet would that be.

When she passed in the yard a battle was being fought, under the covered walkways and all along the battlements, boys were pelting girls with snowballs. Even the stableboys and some of the men-at-arms were laughing and playing like children. Jon was hiding behind the washing well and the snowball he tried to make kept coming apart in his hands. He groaned, looked up and saw Hermione walking by. "You want to play? I need to bury Artos. The traitor has gone over to the enemy." He gestured at their cousin, who was making snowballs with two girls. They each had a dozen at their feet.

"No."

Jon frowned at her. "Were you in the godswood? Is there a dead squirrel back there again? It's mine if its guts are all out and bloody and—" _WHACK._ A snowball hit the back of his head. He whirled around, yelling. "Who threw that? Which one of you cravens threw that snowball? Which one of you is going to get—"

Hermione strode straight past her brother and his snowballs. She was tired and cold and wanted some quietness. Her parents' bedchamber occupied the fourth floor of the Black Keep, with the solar just below. That was where her lady mother would be found, Hermione knew, embroidering by the hearth or studying lodgers. It was the largest bedchamber in the keep, the stone black floors were covered with thick furs and rugs, the great bed was placed beneath the window and hung with brown draperies, its oakwood posts sculpted in the shape of entwined chains.

When Hermione came up the steps, her mother was playing the high harp, still clad in her bedrobe, feet bare and hair tumbling unbound down her back. It was the same hair as Hermione's, cool brown with not a hint of auburn in it, the color of tree barks and ashes. Her eyes were closed as her fingers flew over the golden strings. The harp was a huge thing, twice taller and heavier than Hermione. Tall, gold-crafted, with an ornate pillar carved with silvery vines and leaves, it was her mother's most treasured possession. Sometimes she would play it at feasts and even sing, with a soft voice as sweet as honeycakes frosted in sugar.

She wasn't singing now. She only played, a sad song, mournful and slow. In her lap was a parchment, crumpled from having been read so many times. Hermione knew what it said. It was a letter from her uncle that had come before the war, offering congratulations upon baby Andric's birth and inviting them to guest at his castle when they were old enough to travel. _Darling sister, I realize the fellow is half-savage, but this is the outside of enough,_ Ser Raymun had written. _I have three nephews and one niece and I have yet to meet any of them. Tell your oaf of a husband to bring you to visit._

Hermione thought that sounded grand. Her uncle was a knight and lord of the Trident in the riverlands, far to the south where it was always warm. Her mother was not from the north at all, and Hermione was sure she missed the riverlands and got homesick, especially in the summer, though she never said. That she wished to see her family and childhood friends, though she never said.

Hermione listened to the song for a few more moments, then retreated quietly in the gallery, unseen. Her mother's misery was palpable these days. Jon said she hated that their father and uncle Raymun were warring in the south to help the king. It was all because of the other war, he reckoned. Hermione had been too young to remember, but she knew her history. For close on three hundred years, the realm had been ruled by the Targaryens, the dragon kings. Only the last Targaryens were killed during the war when King Robert won the throne, along with thousands and thousands of men. "Among them our uncles and lord grandfather," Jon said. "And even though Father came back home safe and Mother started growing a baby right away, it didn't bring all her happiness back."

Hermione thought that might be true. _Men are such brave fools,_ her mother would sigh about her brothers, but her brown eyes were always drawn, her expression deeply saddened, as if men could both be hated and terribly loved.

Heart heavy, Hermione wandered to the nursery. The baby was wide awake and happily babbling, utterly intent upon jumping from one end of the room to the other. Babies did not care about wars and rebellions, it turned out. Hermione played silly games with him, which involved talking nonsense and rubbing noses. It made sense to Andric, at least, for he laughed and responded in kind. Then Torrha the nursemaid said he had to sleep and shooed her outside. Again Hermione wandered, down to the empty hall, out the keep, past the covered bridge, until her steps took her all the way up to the rookery tower.

She found her greatuncle Hother seated by the window, his leg languidly propped up on a stool. He was feeding the ravens, tossing them bloody meat slops from a metal bucket. Strings of meat and blood flew everywhere in the cages. The ravens took to the air with great black wings as they snatched morsels and shrieked at one another.

Hermione eased herself onto a stool and braced her elbows on the table. "They're greedy," she commented.

"Hungry," her greatuncle corrected. "You want to help me feed them?"

"No. I still have scars from the last time." She frowned at two birds fighting over a choice piece. "You know, some say that the children of the forest could speak with ravens. They taught it to the First Men too, that's why we have messenger ravens today. I read it in a book. Do you think it's true?"

Her greatuncle snorted in amusement and thrust another fistful of raw meat morsels. "Might be. Birds are clever, cleverer than half the men I've met. I wouldn't be surprised if the crow that pecked out my brother's eye was trying to tell him something. That, or he was hungry. Though why anyone would welcome Mors's conversation, the gods alone know."

"Is it really true he bit that crow's head off?"

"Aye, and what are you wrinkling your nose for?" He flicked a bloody scrap of meat Hermione's way, and laughed when she shrieked. "Nothing beats a fresh crow's head on a cold night. All those little bits of mashed brain. I like to wash mine down with chilled ale. Nothing so sweet."

"You're lying, you don't really eat birds. Stop _teasing_ me."

"I am not. Don't you want to try it? Take one of my ravens. I do not mind."

Hermione stuck out her tongue in answer. Her greatuncle tossed her another scrap of meat but she ducked, and smiled triumphally. He chuckled and went back to his ravens, humming a tune under his breath. A large bird cocked its head and stared at him, almost curiously.

Hother really was Hermione's favorite uncle. He never minded her intruding on his domain or her endless questions. Why people seemed to fear him remained a mystery. He did not look frightening. He was an old, gaunt stick of a man, tall in stature, lordly in bearing, with sharp eyes that missed nothing. His hair was as long as his beard and hung past his shoulders, strikingly white against his leather jerkin and the brown roughspun tunic underneath. Men called him Whoresbane, though Hermione's mother said it was a vile name and she should never repeat it.

"Why aren't you playing with the others?" he suddenly asked. "Finn's girls?"

Hermione grimaced. Children were everywhere underfoot at the Last Hearth since her lord father called his banners and the men rode off to war. Among them were her cousins, her uncle Finn's daughters Edda, Madelyn, and Corin and other Umbers, Artos and Kear and Lara. Hermione wasn't comfortable around them. She didn't understand them, didn't like all the noise they made, and was never sure if they liked her or not. Girls were worse. Every time they whispered to one another, she wondered if it was something about her. She heard things, words, snatches of conversation, like: 'boring', 'annoying', 'always alone', 'why does she read all the time?', and 'is something wrong with her?'. Edda and Lara were the oldest at five-and-ten and turned to sighs and giggles every time a stableboy walked by. Hermione couldn't fathom why. Stableboys were built the same as other men, and she didn't know how a skill in horse-tending could inspire admiration.

What she knew was the other girls didn't like her, and she didn't need to be reminded of any of that. "They are childish," she said loftily. "Mother says grown highborn girls should pray and sing and do embroidery, not play in the mud."

Her greatuncle studied her. "Mayhaps. But as soon as the war ends, your cousins will leave Last Hearth and go back home. You should spend time with them before that day comes."

Hermione was pleased to learn that, and hoped they never came back, but that was not something you said aloud. "Do you suppose the war will end soon?" she asked instead. "Mother says the ironborn are a savage folk, thieves and murderers."

"Aye, ironmen are sea raiders. They plunder the shores in their longships, kill honest folk, steal gold, and rape women. Mostly, they are a bunch of ugly cunts." He put the empty bucket down. "Do you see a roll on that table? Bring it there, and come sit next to me."

Hermione did as she was bid and her greatuncle spread the sheepskin roll out on his lap. It was a map. "That's the Greyjoys's seat," he said, tapping at a series of small islands on the Sunset Sea, off the western coast. "The Iron Islands. Where the rebellion started. Balon Greyjoy's krakens sailed here, and prowled down the sea like wolves, raiding as far south as Lannisport. They burnt down the lions' fleet, carried off half the wealth, it's said, and a hundred women, too."

"The lions, the Lannisters? I thought they lived in Casterly Rock."

"It it. But their fleet is anchored at Lannisport." Hother moved his crooked finger back to the Iron Islands then to another port. _SEAGARD,_ said the ornate script. "The krakens tried to do the same at Seagard, but the riverlanders threw them back into the sea. Then King Robert called the banners with Lord Stark and other southron lords, and battled the ironmen on water, striking back at Fair Isle." He rolled back the map. "That's how you put an end to the krakens. Fighting them on land is fruitless, they just slip back to sea, gods curse them. You have to smash them on the water, to open up the way to their islands. That's where your father is now. On Pyke and the Great Wyke, I suppose, gutting ironmen and bleeding their lands. He'll soon be done."

Hermione had her doubts. "Would he? The ironborn sound fierce."

Not her greatuncle. "Fierce on sea, aye, but weak on land." He brooded for a moment. "I should have gone with them. The next war your father tells me to stay to play the castellan, I'll clout him in the ear so hard his head will turn around backwards. It seems to me that since he became a lord, people have given him entirely too much attention. Poisoned his brain."

"You clouted Father in the ear before he left. I saw you."

"That was a friendly tap, at best. If I ever give someone a whole clout you'll know it."

Hermione kicked her feet. "I hate war," she declared. "What is it good for, except killing people and learning how to read maps? I hate war, I hate it. When one is over, there's always one right after."

"Little girls know nothing," said Hother in a mocking voice. "There are certain things out there worth waging wars for. Honor. Truth. Justice. Family. Vengeance. Love." He pulled out the wineskin he always carried and drank deeply. After wiping his mouth with the back of a wrinkled hand, he said, "I am old, and I have seen many battles. All ugly and cruel and merciless, 'tis true, but I also saw beauty in the carnage. There is something, about a bloody axe, something about a longsword drenched in gore. They are everything they should be. When you slice out at a man, how the blade go into the flesh as if you were cutting into cheese. Blood gushing out from a man's throat and painting your shield red. When arrows wash down from the sky, so perfectly lined, it looks like something the gods would have made. And the noises—they are an absurd song, curses mixed with prayers and pleading and moans of the dying. . . Beauty and horror, love and death, that's why men hate war as much as they love it. I'll never forget the way the sun looked when it set upon the bloody Trident. . . thousands of men died in that war, the air was thick with screams and the smell of shit, but above us the sky turned gold and red and violet. . ."

Some of the ravens were still pecking at the last strings of meat with their beaks, but the majority seemed to be watching them, as if listening. "I've heard that it was King Robert who shone bright during the battle," said Hermione. "Him and Prince Rhaegar."

Het greatuncle snorted on his wine. "The stag and the dragon. The singers leave out much. Your lord father was a giant himself that day. No man could stand before his wroth. He broke the Tyrells' van to pieces and slew I don't know how many lords bannermen from the reach, them with their flowery sigils and fancy armors. Whenever Winterskiss clashed, you could hear the sound for a league around, like a scream out of the seventh hell. There was much and more. I saw some myself, Mors fighting like a madman with his sons's bodies at his feet, I never saw them die. . . northmen howling everywhere around us. . . at the other side the Dornishmen screaming as they filled the air with spears, and that Martell princeling leading the charge. . . but aye, at the end, the war was done when Rhaegar Targaryen died."

Hermione sat up straighter. Winterskiss was her father's monstrous two-handed greatsword, which had been wielded by the old Kings of Last Hearth and forged of Valyrian steel, of a grey so smoky it looked black. "Is is true the Valyrians used spells to make their swords? I read—" She broke off when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later Kolben was shuffling his boots in the doorway. He had changed out of his wet things for brown breeches and a red woolen tunic with the roaring giant-in-chains of their house embroidered on the front.

"Are you telling stories?" he enthused. "Are you? Can I come?"

Hermione was still a tad angry for earlier but decided magnanimously to forgive him as squabbling was not the best way to get one of Hother's stories. "No, but tell us a story, Uncle," she demanded. "One about Valyria."

"Or the children of the forest," said Kol, sidling up closer. There was enough space on the window seat for all three of them. "Tell us!"

"Eh, you don't want to hear another of my old stories."

"Yes we do," both Hermione and Kol insisted. "We do!"

"Valyria, eh? Do you want to hear about the Doom, how the earth split open to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, with blazes so hot and hungry that entire towns were engulfed and all the people died in agony?"

"No, before," said Hermione. "When there were dragons and wizards. They're my favorite."

"Before." Hother tapped the side of his long nose and hummed. "Valyria was the proudest city in all the world, before. The great Freehold, it was called, a place of power, hundreds of gods, and sorcerers who lived under a sky as red as blood. The very stones that made their palaces glowed with the fire of the Fourteen Flames, those flaming mountains of molten rock, and the towers were incredibly high, of smoky glass and jewels woven together by magic. At night, the city shimmered like diamonds and emeralds and black opals and sapphires in a bed of fiery rubies, visible even from great distances. Yet, as beautiful as Valyria was, its inhabitants were even more so. Their hair a silver-gold, their eyes purple, they looked like they were not entirely of the same blood as other men."

"The blood of the dragon," Hermione pointed out.

"Aye, it was. Legends claim that they were descended from dragons, or at least nearly so. Dragonlords, dragontamers, dragonbreeders who married kin to kin and had neither kings nor prince but only freeborn lords, who all shared the rule, even women." Hother peered closely at Kolben. "Do you know the Targaryen words, boy?"

"Blood and fire?"

"That's right," Hother said approvingly. "Blood and fire their dragons brought to their foes, and blood and fire the Valyrians used for their spells and curses. Their priestesses had red dreams that foretold the future, and their sorcerers could speak to one another across skies, deserts, and seas with glass candles. Some could change their faces, put on the likeness of other men, even vanish into shadows and mist. Some knew the names of all things, and all things were theirs to command. If they said to the stone, 'Break!' the stone would break. If they called, 'Fly!' they could jump on the wind's back. The gods were their allies, the demons their friends. Such was the glorious time of the dragonlords."

"But they all died," Kolben interrupted. "And there's no dragons today."

"Quiet," Hermione snapped. "Just let him tell it."

"No need for that, Hermione. Boy's just curious. No, it did not last, Kol, but not all the dragonriders died. At the height of Valyria's power, was born a girl from the House Targaryen. Daenys was her name. Years before the Doom, a dream came to her, tinged in blood, showing her things that had not happened yet. She saw the Doom. How molten stones of fire will fall from the mountains and the black waves of the Shivering Sea will crash against the towers and men and dragons alike will turn to ashes. Aenar Targaryen who was her father, heeded her warning, and moved with all his gold, wealth, dragons and kin. Far west they sailed, to our country of Westeros. They built their castle on Dragonstone, the bleak island in the narrow sea. And then the Doom fell on Valyria, and the earth opened, and thus perished the other dragonlords.

"But not the Targaryens. Daenys the Dreamer married her brother, Gaemon the Glorious, and four generations after them Aegon the Conqueror was born, with Visenya and Rhaenys who were his wives as well as his sisters. Together they subdued the seven kings that ruled in Westeros, defeated Argilac the Arrogant of Storm's End, and cooked King Harren the Black in his gargantuan castle of Harrenhal. Then it was the two great western kings's turn, proud Mern of the Reach and Loren Lannister, the King of the Rock. Those two commanded the mightiest host ever seen in the realm, fifty-five thousand strong, with some six hundred lords great and small and more than five thousand mounted knights. Aegon and his sisters flew above them upon their dragons and swooped down to burn them alive. The Field of Fire, the battle was named afterward. Two and two made four kings, and so Visenya rode to the Vale of the Arryn to make the fifth bend the knee, while her sister went south to Sunspear in Dorne for the sixth. And from the north, King Torrhen Stark marched down with his army of wolves."

"The King Who Knelt," Hermione exclaimed. She knew that story.

"Aye, him," her greatuncle agreed. "When he reached the Trident, he found Aegon and all the lords and knights who had bent the knee waiting for him. Riverlords, westermen, stormlanders, men of the Reach. . . And above the three dragons, Balerion the Black Dread, Meraxes, and Vhagar circling the sky. The King in the North had heard what happened on the Field of Fire and Harrenhal. He knew what might happen if he tried to cross the river to battle them. His lords bannermen urged him to attack all the same, while others told him to fall back to Moat Cailin, the ancient stronghold of the First Men at the top of the Neck. But the King in the North did none of that. He chose to treat, and between the two camps ravens went back and forth. On the morrow, Torrhen Stark himself crossed the river. There, he knelt, laid the crown of the Kings of Winter at Aegon's feet, and swore to be his man. He rose as Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, a king no more. Aye, from that day to this day, Torrhen Stark is remembered as the King Who Knelt. . . but no northman left his burned flesh at the Trident.

"And so Aegon made the Seven Kingdoms one and was anointed King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. And from that day, the Targaryens ruled us. Well, until King Robert."

Hermione thought she saw a grim cast in her greatuncle's eyes. Beside her, her brother stirred. "I'd like to have a dragon," he said. "Then I could fly and go where I wanted, and I could find Father. I'd go help him. I'd burn the ironmen, all of them, and win the war." He jumped to his feet and ran around the rookery, flapping his arms up and down as if to take off the ground. Ravens replied with quorks and strident shrieks. Kol climbed on top of the table and roared at them. "Yum, yum, ironmen!" He stuck his neck out and licked his lips. "I will rip off their heads! Burn them up! Yum, cooked meat!"

Hermione huffed. "You can't have a dragon, you're not Valyrian—"

"GRRRRRRA!" Kol roared at her, snapping his teeth. "I am a DRAGON, girl! Shut up or I'll bite you!"

"You shut up!"

He snapped his teeth a last time before running away to the staircase. Hermione heard his roars continuing farther down in the hall. "He's stupid. Boys are so stupid. The next time he roars at me he's getting his mouth sewn up."

"Leave your brother be," her greatuncle grunted. "He's so young he can barely locate his cock yet."

"He'll bother Mother with his screaming!"

"I have half a mind to bother Lady Meryanne, too. She is too old to sulk in her bedchambers."

Hermione looked at him coldly. "My mother does not sulk."

"Since your lord father went off to war, she eats less and stays in her room playing those sad songs of hers. Is that not sulking?"

"It's called being _sad."_

"What is she sad about? Poor Jon's not even dead and she's already mourning him. And even if he dies, it'll be bravely in battle, sword in hand and horse between his legs, a death worthy of a man. _Tch._ Women. I'll never understand the breed."

"No wonder you're not married," Hermione threw back. "Anyway, it's the stupid ironmen's fault. Who asked them to rebel? They're evil. _Pure_ evil."

"Pure evil?" Hother cackled his mad laughter. "There is no such thing. The ironmen do the cruel things they do, because they have a reason that makes sense to them. Cats eats rats, does that make them evil? I don't think so, and cats don't think so, but I would bet the rats have a different opinion."

"But. . ." Hermione was troubled. Weren't the ironmen the bad ones? In the songs and the old stories, there were always good and bad men. Not half-heroes and half-villains. "It shouldn't be like _this."_

"There isn't a way things should be, girl. There's just how things are, and what we do with them."


End file.
